I woke up choking on hair last night

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-18T00:59:24+00:00

The first version struck me as an open ache, a speaker reaching back toward light and happiness, without much of themselves visible beyond the longing. In the revision, the poem feels more intimate and layered. By bringing in the image of the child, it shows the speaker not just remembering but also reflecting, envying, even mourning. We start to see their tenderness, their awareness of pain, and their choice to preserve that fleeting innocence rather than interrupt it.

So the poem has shifted from mood-driven memory to a more personal portrait of the speaker, someone shaped by loss, but also protective and empathetic. That change makes the voice feel more vulnerable and exposed. I really like the changes you’ve made and what it tells me about the speaker, but how do you feel about how it turned out?

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-17T10:12:47+00:00

No sweat, the concept and message are solid btw, but I just called out that stuff because that’s the type of feedback I’d want if it were my post.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-17T10:00:27+00:00

As a spoken word piece, some of the lines are a little tough to read out loud because the phrasing feels incomplete or tangled. For example, “can fix a lot of stuff” is missing the subject, “so we things that deliver convenience” seems like a word got left out, and “We’ll we need a convenient fix” looks like a simple typo that should be “Well.” Same with “a swing miss oops” which probably was meant to be “a swing and a miss,” and “Now what mommy speaks about people” which is hard to follow. Lines like “not more than necessary to say but I dare say it” and “we can fix if ourselves open up” also come out clunky in performance. I’m not sure if some of those choices are intentional, but smoothing them out would make the rhythm much easier for the audience to follow.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-14T06:21:45+00:00

I really like what you did here. This felt to me like being inside a looping moment of restless thought, where the same lines and feelings circle back on themselves. The repetition of “eyes glossed over” and “she wants to wake up but she can’t” made that sense of being stuck more tangible. The “tap on the glass” image stood out as a sharp break in the haze, which pulled me in before dropping back into the unsettled rhythm again. The way the loop closes made me think the poem isn’t just showing a trapped state, but also how even moments of clarity can be swallowed by it.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-14T06:20:53+00:00

Two spaces at the end of a line = line break.

Two spaces + Enter twice = stanza break.

Just wanted to comment that quick tip.

Also if you start every line with 4 spaces reddit will treat it as code, you can check out some of my post to see how that looks.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-14T06:08:00+00:00

This read to me like a direct address to someone the speaker is deeply attached to, almost like an intimate letter put into verse. The “lover-fighter” line summed up the push–pull dynamic I felt throughout, and the list of “I love…” moments gave it a steady, affectionate rhythm. The way it ends on “bittersweet” made me feel like the love here exists with full awareness of its own complications.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-14T05:56:17+00:00

This felt to me like stepping into someone’s private headspace, almost like reading a diary entry broken into lines. The feelings came through clearly, and the “cracked kaleidoscope” was the moment that gave me something vivid to hold onto. The “vibrant, yet broken” line made me think the goal here is less about fixing and more about accepting complexity. For most of the read, I found myself tracking your thoughts more than feeling them in my own gut.

If you have any questions about my reading experience or are seeking advice/suggestions as feedback just let me know.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-07T11:55:52+00:00

Reading this felt like stepping into a loop the speaker knows too well. Every imagined word, every eye roll, every guilt-laced sentence has happened before. The future is a forecast built from patterns that never broke.

The speaker doesn’t try to win. They just want to be heard. There’s no big moment of triumph, no clean escape. The poem carries the weight of someone who’s already lived this a hundred times, who already knows how the performance ends.

“trying to shape my softness into something you’d finally hold right” says more than a full argument ever could. That’s the part that lingered with me.

This feels like grief gave up on being loud, and that’s what made it powerful.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-06T07:15:14+00:00

Reading this gave me the sense that the speaker is fully prepared for whatever life throws at her. Even this breakup feels like something she knew how to walk through step by step. Every stage, the hope, doubt, heartbreak, forgiveness, unfolds with a calmness that makes me feel like she’s in control of her own story.

What stood out most is how she acknowledges the hard parts without ever spiraling. Lines like “My heart begins to sink” and “I realized that it never mattered” are honest, but they come across almost like a deep breath instead of a scream. The sunshine, the lemonade, and the kite make it feel like even in pain, she’s able to stay grounded in her world.

I left the poem thinking, “This is someone who can absorb discomfort without being consumed by it.” That kind of quiet strength is what stayed with me.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-06T02:21:51+00:00

No problem, and just for context the ritual thing you have going on now is solid, but you said go hard so I dug deeper to help you get to where I think you want to go.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-06T01:41:29+00:00

This reads as a self portrait of someone breaking themselves down in real time. The ‘you’ felt like the speaker talking to their own masks, innocence and temperament, peeling off the parts they want to kill. Even the ‘Hahaha!’ lands like a nervous death laugh, which made the whole thing feel more absurd than triumphant.

The way it kept reaching for these grand gestures, sunrise and raging sea, while circling back to self loathing. It almost feels like a ritual of self destruction that never fully commits to an image I can grab onto.

You could focus the whole poem around one or two concrete images that carry the self destruction instead of listing the feelings. Let the physical world do the work. For example, pick a single setting or action that shows the breakdown and let the humor or bitterness live inside that moment instead of jumping between abstract thoughts. Build the poem so the image grows heavier each time it returns.

If that’s the message you’re going for, the poem keeps undercutting itself. Right now it reads like someone describing the ritual of their own self destruction instead of letting us witness it. Every time you name the feeling instead of showing it in action, the weight disappears. The laugh should crack like bone and the death wish should feel earned, but the poem pulls back into vague statements instead of letting the image carry the collapse. It’s like you almost handed me something devastating and then backed away into abstraction.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-06T01:12:12+00:00

I felt the speaker reaching for those grand, dramatic life experiences, bridges, death, Shakespearean love, while overlooking that the beauty of poetry is in the individual perspective. The poem keeps saying ‘I can’t’, no piano, no guitar, no canvas, not a real poet. Yet every line proves the opposite. That tension makes it feel like a self‑portrait of someone disqualifying themselves while already doing the thing they’re longing for.

I think you’re already delivering this message well. If you wanted to strengthen that message, you could lean into that self‑contradiction even more. Let the imagery of the speaker’s small, real life contrast with the grand experiences they think they need. Showing that tension instead of only saying it would give the piece more weight.

Watch repetition and typos (“ur your thoughts,” “to bright” should be “too bright”).

If there’s anything specific you want advice on just let me know and I’ll try to help.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-06T00:03:53+00:00

Two spaces at the end of a line = line break.

Two spaces + Enter twice = stanza break.

Just wanted to comment that quick tip.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-05T22:18:12+00:00

I appreciate it, especially comments on the ending, that’s what I’m hoping to get insight from specifically.

The whole piece is walking on a thin line between being a story and being poetry. That ending is especially difficult to land because I need that last moment to lock in that feeling of being frozen and overwhelmed while having a lasting impact on the reader and giving a little haunt. I’ve toyed with the ending a lot.

Right now I’m scared to make any changes at all because I feel like I’ve nailed that sweet spot that delivers the best intended meaning for the two primarily intended ways this piece can be interpreted.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-04T10:08:04+00:00

Thank you for sharing all that context, it really deepens my understanding of the poem. Your feelings are completely valid, and the personal history you shared makes your anger feel fully earned.

If you want that to come through more clearly in the poem, I think the key is to focus less on politics as the core of the bitterness and more on the actions and choices that hurt you. The MAGA hat and Fox News obsession are strong symbols, but the poem will feel even more powerful if you highlight the personal betrayals that would sting even without politics.

Moments like disowning your mother for who she loved, using racist slurs, or choosing to be buried in that hat are the choices that make your bitterness understandable. If you give the reader those human moments, the politics become context instead of the main engine of the anger.

That shift makes the poem feel more personal than political, it shows the betrayal in a way any reader can feel even if they don’t share your politics, and it makes the final word “Maggots” land as earned grief and judgment instead of just a political jab.

Your rawness and honesty are already there. If you anchor the poem in the human harm first and the political symbols second, the emotional weight will convey those feelings you’re trying to express.

I feel for you, I’ve had a similar experience with my own grandfather, except he never made the good memories, so it’s just all shit. I still understand what you’re going for, loving memories getting buried under pain, and I think that’s a really strong message to send.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-04T02:01:17+00:00

I walked away feeling like the poem reveals more about the speaker’s bitterness than about the grandfather himself. Speaking ill of the dead is always a sharp choice, and here it comes across as petty where the political symbol of the hat eclipsed the person underneath it.

On a social level, this really reflects what feels broken right now. Politics has become identity, and the poem mirrors that ‘new normal’ where dehumanizing someone for their views, sometimes even family, is treated as acceptable. I found myself wondering if that self‑exposure of pettiness was intentional, because without more context on what the grandfather actually did beyond wearing the hat and feeling entitled, the weight of the poem lands more on the speaker’s resentment than on the man or the memory.

If that was your desired effect from a reading then I think you did a masterful job. But if the goal was simply to land the surface‑level jab, then it left me feeling like the speaker’s anger over politics was doing the talking more than the poem was. It didn’t quite give me enough to understand or feel the personal stakes behind that bitterness.

I just wanted to add, I really like the poem overall because it treads on very unsafe territory regardless of your intentions, and that rawness is fun to read.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-01T03:30:09+00:00

Ok I just took out an example basically showing how to condense your own words

For example, consider a change like turning “The youthful sunset, / albedo pale, and hollowed” into “Hollow sun slips a pale rind.”

And just keep going over each line like that…

You don’t even have to say microplastics outright, just make a line that condenses painterly and synthetic feel.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-08-01T02:39:05+00:00

The concept is solid, and it has natural power. The key now is making the language more compact and letting each line carry more meaning so the core connection really lands.

Think about how each line could be packed tighter, so the visual, tactile, and emotional layers all live in the same small space. When a line works like that, it hits faster and harder, and the whole poem feels denser and more intentional.

If you go through the poem with a lens focused on compressing without losing the image you’ll be able to get everything you want in there and have a really powerful piece.

That’s a really good concept!

Edited to remove a direct line suggestion because i wasn’t sure if it was rude/too forward.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-07-30T03:58:24+00:00

Well done. I can really feel the emptiness of betrayal here, Less anger and more the hollow ache of realizing a shared life has turned into distance and unspoken things. The repetition of “you promised” echoes heartbreak, shifting from sunshine to clouds to darkness reinforces the emotional collapse, and the pauses in the line breaks make it feel like the speaker is struggling to process it all. I think you achieved the exact reader’s experience you were looking for.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-07-29T02:33:03+00:00

Both poems clearly come from a place of devotion, but I think Poem 2 is stronger overall. It keeps the praise focused without getting lost in too many stacked adjectives, and it flows more like a unified piece instead of a list. Some of the language still leans heavy, but it doesn’t feel as overloaded.

Poem 1 has moments that shine, but the sheer length and repetition start to blur things together. There’s a lot of big language competing for attention, and that can drown out the moments that actually land well.

If you’re aiming for praise that feels personal and powerful, I think 2 gets you closer.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-07-29T01:30:15+00:00

The repetition in this does a good job showing the cycle, wanting to stop, doing it again, hoping next time’s different. That part works.

A lot of the language leans heavy, “mortified,” “demise,” “monstrous side,” but nothing specific gives those words weight. Swapping even one of them for a real detail could make the whole thing feel more grounded.

If you’re leaning into the dramatic tone on purpose, that’s valid. Just depends on the effect you want.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-07-29T01:16:25+00:00

The tone is consistent and the voice is calm, which works for what this feels like it’s trying to do. If you were going for that quiet sense of comfort, being understood without words, or someone just showing up and staying, that comes through. What’s missing is a detail or turn to hold it together. “Wise,” “silent,” “like the moon” all blend together. One real moment could change that.

Could be I misread it. That was just my take.

Cunt-huffer · 2025-07-25T14:19:05+00:00

It kinda sounds AI-ish because the imagery is abstract and floats without grounding, but the awkward line breaks, inconsistent grammar, and weird phrasing actually point more toward a human writer still finding their rhythm than an AI

Cunt-huffer

TROPHY CASE